We hear often about its opposite: The “perfect” storm. For, it is the combination of coincidences which coalesce that result in that greater calamity which we all allegedly want to witness: Of winds howling at destructive speeds; of the tides reaching their pinnacle; of other natural forces bringing to fore the ferocity of supernatural strength — and all together, the aggregation of beauty within fear.

But what about the imperfect storm? The one that merely is ordinary and without much fanfare? That is what most of us represent — of nothing exceptional; where history did not note, nor did it grab the attention of the front pages.

Most lives are ordinary, in that sense, where we represent an imperfect storm, not worthy of even a mention in a footnote. A birth; a life; somewhat of a career; a sickness; an illness, then death. But within that spectrum of ordinariness is the tale of human triumph and suffering; it’s just that we don’t notice it, and barely give it a second glance, precisely because it was never advertised as the “perfect” storm.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, perhaps your case fails to merit a mention as a “perfect storm”; although, from your perspective, the calamity of a career-ending illness or injury will likely be seen by you as such.

Desperation is born of it; escape routes relieve the sense of it; and in the end, it is a belief in the hope that there are alternatives which provides a release from it. The wild animal that is trapped will do everything to escape, including acts of self-harm if there is no alternative presented. Whether of higher intelligence or some lesser level, the sense or “feeling” of being trapped leads to a suffocating belief of hopelessness.

Armies allow for it; battles often depend upon it; and the “it” which demands for an unconditional surrender is countermanded if there has been a history of genocidal atrocities committed. It is the hope for some alternative to the present circumstances of despondency that results in a relief from the sense of being trapped; but options and alternatives often remain obscured by fear, lack of knowledge and the paralyzed state itself of “feeling” trapped.

For humans, it is knowledge which is the greater release from such a state of restrictiveness, and for Federal and Postal employees specifically, who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition is impacting more than their careers — from growing harassment to an imposition of a “Performance Improvement Plan” to further actions, including a proposed removal, etc. — including the tumultuous upheavals experienced in their personal lives, the sense of feeling trapped is a natural consequence of failing to act.

Animals are known to act in desperation and reactionary ways; humans, it is wrongly thought, engage in a more reflective mode of acting — i.e., in a more deliberative, considered approach. But the sense of feeling trapped often undermines the rational side of humans, and it is in such a state of desperation that the Federal or Postal employee will submit a poorly-prepared Federal Disability Retirement application, increasing the chances of a First-Stage denial.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the assistance of an attorney will not necessarily guarantee success at any given stage of the process, but it may raise the chances of such success at each and every stage. In the end, it is knowledge of the options available which allows for the release of one from “feeling trapped”, and consultation with an experienced attorney when preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the best way to release the hope for a more secure future in entering into the traps of OPM.

The Cynic’s Corner is that part of the mindset that has encountered the worst of human behavior; where sunshine is merely a prelude to a dark cloud; when brightness is predicted to last for only a short while; and where — when a declaration is made with a joyful sound of delightful exclamations like, “It’s the weekend!” — is immediately followed by the undermining postscript, “Yes, and then Monday follows.”

The view that life’s brutish perspective can be seen in stark contrast with the idealist’s naïveté that everything has a bright side to it, that human depravity always wins out by love, and sunshine always follows a cloud burst or a week of rainy Sundays. Is moderation always the answer to the charge that truth never fits upon the spectrum of excessiveness, and it is the extremes of perspectives that defy the logic of truth?

The Cynic’s Corner is attained and reserved by and for the aged; for it is only by experience of life’s encounters with daily human depravity that one can come to the conclusion that the Cynic’s Corner has reached. The fresh smile of youth’s hope; the innocent eyes for the swan in flight or the fawn in the hunter’s headlights; these will dissipate like time, wrinkle-less laughter and the fresh bones of a healthy body; and then the cynic whispers, “But in the end, we all wither and die.”

Perhaps. Or, more to the point, Yes, there is certainly an end to everything, but isn’t the point not of how it ends, but of the manner it is lived?

If you are already a member of the Cynic’s Corner, then you will have already concluded that everything that could go wrong in the preparation, formulation and submission of the Federal Disability Retirement application, can and often does go wrong, and that is why consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement law is an essential feature and component of the entire administrative process, lest you have renounced your seat at the Cynic’s Corner and have instead joined that “other” club — the Knights of Naïveté.

Do other species engage in the same games of options and alternative scenarios? Does the Lioness, just before the charge and race to overtake its noontime meal, say to herself, “Yes, that one looks good; but on the other hand…”?

Or, does the fact that a subjective state of consciousness fails to include verbal statements or conceptual constructs coherent by human standards constitute an absence of such option-choosing methodology of thought processes?

Or, do we accept its silent substitute, where there is an antelope, a wildebeest and a wild boar , and as the lioness surveys the prey before her, the fact that she looks, views, takes into account the ease of capture as to each – in a silent, non-verbal manner – constitute the identical cognitive approach as that of murmuring to one’s self? “On the other hand…”

Does everything have to be verbal in order to reach a level of “thought”, or can the silent surveying of a predator reach the same level of intellectual coherence as that of a verbalized statement?

What about pain? If you go to a doctor’s office and the MRI shows multi-level degenerative disc disease and the nurse says to you, “You must be in considerable pain,” and you respond with, “Yes, but I haven’t ever said anything about it” – does that mean that you never had pain, or merely that you did not verbalize it? Can existence of X remain in a private, insular and singular world, or must it be communicated in order to have a “reality”-based existence?

How is it different from the child who says, “I just saw a purple monster hiding behind the couch”, and the parent smiles and says, “What an imagination!” The fact that the child saw it and no one else, but failed to verbalize it at first – does it make a difference? And when the child declared its existence, do we doubt it any more than the admission of the non-stated pain because we don’t believe in purple monsters? On the other hand…

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, is it better to constantly be a complainer and whiner and keep telling your supervisor and coworkers that you have a medical condition and the medical condition prevents you from doing essential elements X, Y and Z?

Or, like most Federal and Postal workers, do your remain silent for years and even decades, enduring the pain of physical deterioration or the tumult of psychiatric turmoil, and then get “penalized” for it when you file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, merely because “no one knew about it” until it became so bad that you had to file? On the other hand…

Most people are able to tolerate life’s bombardment of stresses by dividing them up, placing them into some semblance of order in priority of tackling them, and bifurcating the individual slices from the aggregate of the whole. For, if you focus too much upon the forest, as opposed to the individual trees that provide markers for finding your way out, your will become overwhelmed and lost.

It is thus tantamount to the idea of a chaotic rationality, or a messy desk that is disorganized for anyone else but for the one who sits and works at the desk; no one can find anything when asked to look upon the messiness, but query the person who “owns” the desk and he can locate the document immediately.

Similarly, the divided order is where the stresses of life, the messes of living and the chaos of all that must be accomplished in the day-to-day discourse of an individual – from family obligations, work, leisure time, spending time with kids, making a living, paying bills, exercising, keeping up with one’s professional education and obligations – must all be “divided” in order to maintain some semblance of order, and the division itself must be done internally, mentally and within the sphere of private thoughts and unspoken actions; and it is out of the chaos of the world around that the order is imposed by the very division placed within the quietude of one’s consciousness.

Then, of course, complications can occur – that proverbial “last straw that broke the camel’s back” can come sauntering in the dead of night and bring about chaos where chaos once was bridled and restrained.

A medical condition can certainly do that. For, in many ways, a medical condition is itself chaos defined. It is an attack not only upon the body, but of the mind as well, and undermines a sense of balance, integrity of self, and self-confidence.

That is why preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS , CSRS or CSRS Offset becomes an external imposition of an order divided from within. It allows for a hopeful look into a future, where one may be able to escape from the chaotic darkness of the deepening morass arising from work, the problems of the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal facility, and the constant struggle with pain, paranoia or uncontrollable anxiety; and replaces it with a retirement that allows for a basic annuity that extends until age 62, at which point it is recalculated into regular retirement.

A divided order is thus one more step that needs to be attained in attending to one’s medical condition, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is often the first next step to reaching that goal.

We take for granted much, and dismiss with careless appreciation the residue of crumbs begotten. The idiom that refers to the final straw which breaks a camel’s back — why does the foreign species have an impact upon a culture which is unfamiliar with such a beast of burden? Is it that, despite the images produced against the background of pyramids and pharaohs of a bygone civilization, the essence and theme of the proverbial statement resonates, whether replaced by a horse, a donkey or an ox?

The idea that tolerance to, and capacity for, a seemingly limitless weight of workplace bombardment, whether in translated terms of physical endurance or cognitive stress, is encapsulated by that transcendent cultural expression that there is, indeed, an invisible boundary of and for the human experience.

It is complex; the physical deterioration can presumably be witnessed because of the appearance exhibited; but it is the inner psyche and psychological harm, over untold times and lacking of precision of limit, which tests the stress points of fractures barely visible and likely detrimental. Stress fractures may be subtle and sometimes inconsequential; but the incremental aggregation if left unreinforced will refuse to withstand an eternity of disrepair.

The complexity of human experience begins with the narrative carried by childhood memories; advances in fits and starts during the “difficult” period of transition from innocence to adulthood; and becomes cemented within the casement of early independence, where the spectrum and balance between love and hate, idealism and cynicism, and a mixture of hope denied by reality, coalesce to form the compendium of what the essence of a person becomes.

On that journey of filling the narrative, some become tested by greater or lesser traumas; and whether one ascribes “fault” to actions which result in consequences otherwise foreseeable, the reality is that those experiences encountered mold the character of the human narrative exposed.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition may cut short one’s career in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service, it is the complexity of the human experience which preceded that moment of realization that a medical condition may prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, which will determine the future course of actions and lay the groundwork for a brighter tomorrow.

Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the central point of idioms which transcend time, cultures and limitations of perspectives in modernity, is that we refuse to become relegated to a mere statistical footnote by allowing for that last straw which breaks the camel’s back, and instead insist upon allowing for that beast of burden to survive another day, if only to impart some wisdom to a world which no longer recognizes the complexity of human experience.

It is the latter in the compound word which is left forgotten and unnoticed, precisely because of the screaming blare represented by the former, demanding attention by the sheer nature and character of its breaching sensibilities, like the spoiled cousin refusing to abide by the conventions imposed upon uninvited visitors and customs curtailing unwanted guests.

Once, before time forgotten and memories untarnished, the landscape was perhaps a pasture green with wildflowers and vegetation overgrown; then, a possessor who perhaps put up a fence to demarcate the beauty by identifying acquisition, tending to the weeds, creating a vegetable garden here, building a house over there, and all the while trying to maintain the beauty and solitude of a picturesque scene of pastoral quietude.

Initial intentions are rarely malevolent; it is time, circumstances and disrepair of incremental decay which, in their unnoticed aggregation of cumulative disregard, suddenly fall upon us like a tidal wave of gloom. Perhaps it began more with the invention, creation and abundance of implements and industrial tools; or just the defect of human essence and the inherent laziness of the species.

An automobile which refused to throttle one early morning can certainly become the foundation of that linguistic pose at the forefront of the compound; later, a refrigerator where the condenser fan or the compressor, or some other such component which refused to make the proper sounds and conduct itself in a manner befitting cold air in the heat of a summer day, suddenly gives out, and what do you do with a monstrosity taking up valuable space within the limited dimensions of a cramped kitchen?

And thus, over time, where once the carefully tended landscape of pristine greenery unscathed by the clutter of unwanted debris, begins to dominate, as do most creations of human refuse. The detritus of discarded wreckage scattered in the afterthought of one’s castle, as represented by the backyard of a home, is telling of a lengthy history of accumulation, decisions, riffraff of rubble unwanted — sort of like the history of human experiences comprised of emotional baggage gathered and garnered.

The outer reflects the inner, and the essence which expands within the soul of a tormented individual requires release and revelation, if only for a fortnight before an exponential explosion of psychic need claws to escape from the restraining membrane throughout. Ugliness begs for concealment and a veil of hope; and so the grass and weeds which grow to cover the rusting wreckage in a junkyard of despair, often parallels the anguished inner being of the one who cries silently in hollows where no one can hear, or is unwilling to listen.

Junkyards are interesting case studies of the history of individual lives, otherwise undiscovered except perhaps by archaeologists who mistake an ancient site for a bevy of linear rationality. But it is often the forgotten part of the junkyard which remains unnoticed — that of the inner component of man, left untended to and forgotten for fear of releasing the box which Pandora was entrusted with, containing all of the evils of the world, and what more to consign but the turmoils of human emotion and psychological scars, otherwise camouflaged by smiles and entreaties of normative concealment?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition — whether physical, emotional or mental — the junkyards most concerning are comprised of the illness and pain hidden from full view, perhaps left in the rear and avoided by others, which burdens the soul beyond capacity to endure.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is often merely a first step in the process of clearing out the debris which accumulated over a lifetime of attempting to conceal and contain; for, in the end, the Federal or Postal worker who needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is at a point in his or her life, when the wreckage mounting in the unseen privacy of junkyards left unattended, requires help to haul those heavy components of human detritus away, and in the process, a forgotten jewel carelessly discarded in a time once known with laughter in the pasture of one’s past, may again be discovered for future joy and hope.

Seven False Myths about OPM Disability Retirement

1) I have to be totally disabled to get Postal or Federal disability retirement.
False: You are eligible for disability retirement so long as you are unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of your job. Thus, it is a much lower standard of disability.

2) My injury or illness has to be job-related.
False: You can get disability even if your condition is not work related. If your medical condition impacts your ability to perform any of the core elements of your job, you are eligible, regardless of how or where your condition occurred.

3) I have to quit my federal job first to get disability.
False: In most cases, you can apply while continuing to work at your present job, to the extent you are able.

4) I can't get disability if I suffer from a mental or nervous condition.
False: If your condition affects your job performance, you can still qualify. Psychiatric conditions are treated no differently from physical conditions.

5) Disability retirement is approved by DOL Workers Comp.
False: It's the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) the federal agency that administers and approves disability for employees at the US Postal Service or other federal agencies.

6) I can wait for OPM disability retirement for many years after separation.
False: You only have one year from the date of separation from service - otherwise, you lose your right forever.

7) If I get disability retirement, I won't be able to apply for Scheduled Award (SA).
False: You can get a Scheduled Award under the rules of OWCP even after you get approved for OPM disability retirement.